I was catching up with a seasoned leader and mentor in a delightful Italian restaurant. He was keen to hear about the state of church planting in Canada and my role with C2C Network.

As we worked on our Caesar salads, my dining companion wanted to know the secret sauce that gives C2C recruitment mojo.

We don’t recruit planters – we pray!

“Yes, but what is your strategy?” He repeated, “How do you recruit church planters?”

We don’t coax, cajole or tap prospective planters on the shoulder – we pray.

We have dialed into an ancient exhortation from the LORD Jesus:

“The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field” (Luke 10:2).

One of the huge needs in post-Christian or pre-Christian Canada is the deployment of gospel-centred leaders who will follow Jesus on mission and plant churches.

Jesus told the attentive 72 that they were in a glorious day of opportunity: “the harvest is plentiful.” At the same time, he indicated that the primitive movement was suffering a personnel crisis: “the workers are few.”

His prescription? Pray!

In light of this, our coast-to-coast team sets smartphone alarms and watches to 10:02. When they go off, we ask the Lord of the harvest to call out workers.

We might be in a coaching meeting at the Chapel of St. Arbucks. We might be in a room full of leaders. But we pray.

Sometimes we stop proceedings and call the gathering to prayer. Other times we take this cue for silent intercession.

We pray that Jesus will disrupt leaders and that they will hear his summons to plant the gospel. We pray that they will be led by the Holy Spirit, that God will use them to make much of Jesus and that the Lord of the harvest will provide the resources to get the job done.

We remind ourselves of the words Jesus declared to his team: “…apart from me me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

Prayer is a posture we adopt.

Prayer is a practice we cultivate.

Prayer is our power source!

Lord, teach us to pray!

[Bill Hoggis national missiologist for the C2C Network.

A secret sauce for church planting? was last modified: July 13th, 2017 by Bill Hogg